CHAPTER 21



Chapter 21

The Rise of Progressivism

Chapter Summary

Convinced that rapid industrialization and urbanization had created serious problems and disorder, Progressives shared an optimistic vision that organized private and government action could improve society. Progressivism sought to control monopoly, build social cohesion, and promote efficiency. Muckrakers exposed social ills that Social Gospel reformers, settlement house workers, and other Progressives attacked. Meanwhile, increasing standards of training and expertise were creating a new middle class of educated professionals including some women. The Progressives tried to rationalize politics by reducing the influence of political parties in municipal and state affairs. Many of the nation's problems could be solved, some Progressives believed, if alcohol were banned, immigration were restricted, and women were allowed to vote. Educated blacks teamed with sympathetic whites to form the NAACP and began the movement that eventually wiped away Jim Crow. Other Progressives stressed the need for fundamental economic transformation through socialism or through milder forms of antitrust action and regulation.

Objectives

A thorough study of Chapter 21 should enable the student to understand

1. The social justice reforms of the period and the role of the church in carrying out the Social Gospel.

2. The origins of the progressive impulse.

3. The progressive emphasis on scientific expertise, organizational reform, and professionalism.

4. The role of women's groups in promoting reform.

5. The significance of the women's suffrage movement.

6. The desire of the progressives to limit the role of political party organizations and the measures they advocated to accomplish this goal.

7. The temperance movement and its relationship to other progressive reforms.

8. The origins of the NAACP and the importance of W.E.B. DuBois.

9. The movement to restrict immigration, and how allowing fewer immigrants was regarded as a reform.

10. The alternate approaches to the problems of the trusts: socialism, regulation, and trust busting.

Main Themes

1. How progressivism was a reaction to the rapid industrialization and urbanization of the United States in the late nineteenth century.

2. That all progressives shared an optimistic vision that an active government could solve problems and create an efficient, ordered society.

3. That progressives wanted to reduce the influence of party machines on politics.

4. How temperance, immigration restriction, and women’s suffrage movements took on crusade-like aspects.

Points for Discussion

1. Progressives professed to believe that government at all levels should be strong, efficient, and democratic so that it could better serve the people. What changes in the structure and operation did progressives advocate to achieve these aims? Can the attempts at civil-service reform in the nineteenth century be seen as a precursor of this type of progressive program?

2. Discuss the changing historical interpretations of the players, motives, and processes of progressive reforms.

3. Explain the three "impulses" of the Progressive movement. What specific programs embodied those impulses?

4. To what extent did muckrakers, Social Gospel reformers, settlement house volunteers, social workers, and other experts reflect the central assumptions of progressivism?

5. Explain how progressivism affected women and, conversely, how women affected progressivism.

Focus on how southern women especially reacted to lynching.

6. Who were the opponents of progressive reforms and what arguments did they use against the Progressives? (See Document number 2 in the Study Guide.)

7. How and why did the Progressives attempt to free government and politics from the domination of the political parties? With what results? (See Document number 1 in the Study Guide.)

8. Discuss the crusades of progressive reformers to prohibit alcohol, restrict immigration, and achieve women's suffrage. What similarities or differences characterized these movements?

9. Progressives shared an animosity toward the trusts but disagreed on how best to deal with them. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the various "solutions" to the problem put forth at the time.

10. How did progressives try to reform conditions for working men and women?

Interpretive Questions Based on Maps and Text

1. What led one state to be called the "laboratory of progressivism"? Who was this state's leading progressive?

2. In general, where were settlement houses located and why? What was their function? Why was Hull House the most famous U.S. settlement house?

3. What natural event in what city was the catalyst for the invention of the commission plan of municipal government? Note that both the commission plan and the manager plan began in small southern cities and spread only after they were adopted by larger Northern cities. What factors would help explain this pattern?

4. What probably explains why the particular two states failed to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment?

5. Compare and contrast the old and new immigrants in terms of their geographic origins and their socioeconomic characteristics.

6. How did Native Americans react to these newer immigrants?

Internet Resources

For Internet quizzes, resources, references to additional books and films, and more, consult the text's Online learning Center at brinkley12.

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